Uneasy Conversation
by Aki Vos
Summary: One-shot, Naru-Hina after Pein destroys village. Super-cute!


It was a small and lowly place to be right now; Konoha after Pein. The minds and hearts of those around were falling in a desperate nose dive to the bottom of depression. So many died and now with nowhere to go they just wander around the rubble helplessly. Among the wanderers was young, slightly dazed and happy Hinata Hyuuga letting her heart wander for a while over her mind. As she walked past what used to be called her home, she smiled fondly and picked up a scroll dusting it off and finding it of unimportance.

Most would accuse Hinata of not feeling sorry, but she just couldn't right now. She was elated in the joys that now she didn't have to hide herself away following Naruto around. She told him the truth and tried to fight in the defense of him so she thought she could at least approach him without fainting and maybe hold a conversation, also without fainting. Nothing but warm, tender thoughts were going through her head.

Haplessly she tossed the scroll over her shoulder where she heard a strange sound like it was being caught by a hand. Perhaps that's because it was. Her head swiveled, the pale eyes glancing behind her to see the bloodied up prince of her dreams with the scroll in his hands. He looked at it, smiled and looked up at her. Naruto's voice was a little low as he walked foreword and offered the scroll back. "You should watch where you throw things, if I wasn't paying attention that would have hurt."

He held it up to her with the same careless smile he gives to everyone. Hinata felt faint. She felt like falling over and collapsing onto the nice soft broken bits of bamboo but just couldn't find the courage to do that even. She felt completely cornered since the area she was standing in, her former house, was a little out of the city and the only way you got to the Hyuuga manor was on purpose.

She reached out and took it. "Um…. I'm sorry." She gasped at her head for more words but her head was busy trying to keep her heart going. She tried speaking from the heart but it was busy drooling which she found quite awkward because that was her mouth's function along with speaking in which she needed help.

Luckily for Hinata, Naruto wasn't that shy and would talk about basically anything in front of anyone. "It's okay. How's the injury? It looked pretty bad. Sakura said you'll be like new in a few days."

"Yeah, it just stings a bit." Hinata couldn't take it any much long; she might explode if she stood there with him in front of her. She took a deep breath, "I better get cleaning now. Excuse me." She bowed a bit and began picking up the pieces that couldn't be reused in some way or another.

She expected to hear footsteps going away, the noise decreasing, not increasing. She picked up another piece of wood and saw as the two shoes stopped very close in front of her. Hinata glared up only to be immediately met by his gaze. Naruto had crouched down and was looking at her. "Let's go for a walk, the rubble will be here when you get back."

Hinata immediately dropped the pieces of wood and stood up in an eerie connected unison with the blond and stared at him with a helpless expression. Naruto seemed to ignore it and turned towards the south. "Let's go to the river, it usually wipes away the bad memories for a while."

Naruto began walking away and stopped and turned around, Hinata was a few feet behind him, she stopped. They looked at each other for a minute before Naruto gave her a funny look. "Why are you all the way back there?"

"I… I usually…" Hinata just realized she went against herself. She wanted to walk next to him, but she was too used to following people and went habitually to her normal distance.

"Well get up here, it's got to be annoying staring at the backs of people's heads all the time." Naruto said and waited while Hinata took three long and deliberate steps forward and stopped next to him nervously looking slightly towards the ground. "So…"

Hinata didn't want to hear what was after so, it could be anything. 'So, I like Sakura. So, I'm busy looking for Sasuke. So, I've decided to become more like Guy then Lee.' Absolutely anything, though she doubted the last one in that no one could be more like Guy then Lee and it made her smiled. She didn't notice she was smiling but Naruto did.

He put his hands behind his head, elbows pointing out like he normally did and took a deep breath in. To his surprise, and more to hers, his words were calm and paced in an inviting tone. "Why didn't you just tell me in the first place?"

Hinata couldn't just say 'I'm shy and I thought you would reject me.' She tried to think of a better answer and soon got lost in that single little thought. She felt a hand on her shoulder, "you alright, you kind of stopped walking… and breathing for a second."

"Oh, uh, yeah." She said and looked at him snapping out of her thoughts, he was touching her. He was looking straight at her, and it was twice now that her had shown interest in her well being. "I… I don't know."

"I don't know why I do a lot of stuff either, but I learned never challenge Jiraiya to a fist fight from it." Naruto's face shrunk a bit. "I guess that's no longer a problem however. But he died as a great Ninja, and I don't think he'd prefer to go any other way. Anyway, are you okay to walk the rest of the way there?"

Hinata shook her head, "I am feeling a little woozy." She said softly and raised her hand to her head.

"You took a lot of damage today, that's why. Here," Naruto said and offered his back to her, "climb on, I'll carry you."

Hinata's breath lapsed out loud, she didn't mean it too. She began to worry about insulting him but naruto's face remained as cheesily happy as it usually was. Something about his face made her calm down inside and she was able to step foreword and wrap her arms around his neck. He grabbed her legs and began walking foreword. "Thank you for carrying me."

"It's no problem. I promise I won't fall backwards." He said turning his head a bit towards his shoulder, the one where she had elected to put her head on. "I did that one day when I was carrying Jiraiya back to the hotel, he was too drunk to walk and I was busy yelling at him. I slipped on a wet spot and sent him crashing off the roof still attach to me. Luckily he broke my fall and sobered quickly enough to beat the shit out of me before bed."

Hinata giggled a bit before resuming her normal reserved face with a slight love infested smile and gaze. Naruto turned back to paying attention to the path so he could keep his promise and quickly made it to the river. Naruto stopped by a large tree and took time dropping her legs so she didn't fall. Hinata quickly made a point of retracting her arms from around him and stepping backwards a step. Naruto quickly looked around the tree and found what he was looking for. A good sturdy branch that look like it wouldn't break.

Naruto quickly grabbed his summoning scroll, senjutsu coat, regular coat and shirt and all threw them off. Hinata didn't know what to make of it until he slipped off his shoes and jumped into the tree annoucning himself as the best splash maker in Konoha.

"What?" Hinata's response was innocent and she could gather at the time with naruto being shirtless around her that he was going to make a big splash in the river by jumping from the tree. She did however understand that he was going to show off.

"Watch this!" He said. Naruto took off running towards the end of the branch put his hands together, jumped up with about ten clones. They landed in the center of the river in cannonballs and splashed the water up high enough that everything was soaked: his clothes and the scroll, the dirt, and Hinata Hyuuga. Only a single naruto's head poped up about half way just letting his eyes show and he watched Hinata's reaction. She was laughing and complaining at the same time.

Naruto popped out of the water and landed easily on top of it. Naruto smiled and began walking towards his things. "See, the river's great, you're not thinking about a single bad thing that's happened today!"

"I think that's more of your doing then the rivers." She said completely comfortable. It surprised her and she stopped and turned her head quickly towards the ground as if she had crossed a line she wasn't supposed to. She was about to apologize but Naruto had began to step away. She kept her head towards the ground and found a rather intresting bright silver pebble to stare at. She didn't know why she like it so much, but she concluded it was shiny and it's best to look at it and not Naruto.

She didn't know it, but Hinata had found herself staring at the rock for a few minutes and hadn't even realized in that time naruto had walked down the river and walked back until something bright and colorful was shoved a few inches away from her face causing her to jump. Hinata back her head up and brough it into focus, it was a small bright yellow flower and attached to it was a dripping wet, half naked boy she had a crush on. "Here. Give you something to look at when you look down. Why do you look down?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend or any…"

"No, it's just, it's like your scared to look at people. You don't have to scared of me, I won't hurt you, you know that." Naruto said and persitantly shoved the flower forword. Hinata reached a hand up to grab the gesture and took it care not to touch his hand. He smiled to himself and looked around before sitting down on the ground. "Well, I'm stuck here until my clothes dry I guess, no laundrymats and everything."

"Town's going to take a long time to rebuild." Hinata said, she really didn't have anywhere to go anymore and she was to queesy to walk back toteh shattered ruins of her house so she simply sat down as well. "Everyone's out of a home…"

"Don't feel too bad, in a couple days hard work, well have things building again and Konoha will be better then ever! I'm going to make it my personal job to desgin the new Hokage building since I'm going to be there a lot when I become Hokage." He smiled and pointed a thumb at himself. He sighed at the thought and turned his attention back to Hinata.

She was trying to look at Naruto, but every now and then her eyes found themselves at the flower which reminded her to look at Naruto. Naruto got up, walked over next to her and plopped himself down in the dirt legs folded. Hinata looked down at their legs, their knees were touching. She almost choked up again but found her breath by staring at the flower. "So?"

"Hm?" She responded and was able to look at him straight in the face though it took a lot of effort.

He shrugged and smiled. "Well, I'm pretty sure you know that I've never considered you more then a friend," Naruto said, the hope in his voice unwavering. Hinata tried to keep looking at him, she was epecting the worst to come flow out of his lips. "But then again you never told me you liked me."

The young woman stopped. She couldn't grasp the sentence's meaning. "Huh?"

"You should have just said something instead of fainting, although it was kind of funny." Naruto said getting sidetracked. He snapped himself out of going through a bloopers reel inside his head. "It's not like I'm that hard to approach, well, maybe I am… But it's not like I would have said no."

"Really?" She said smiling at him, Hinata's face was lit up. Naruto reached over and grabbed her hand and smiled. Hinata's face became a little goofy. 'You did it!' She looked over quickly to see him lean in and kiss her on the cheek. 'Oh my…'

"Hey… Hinata?" Naruto said as she smiled and passed out. "Hinata? She fainted…"


End file.
